To prevent fires, and the resulting loss of life and property, the use of flame detectors or flame detection systems is not only voluntarily adopted in many situations, but is also required by the appropriate authority for implementing the National Fire Protection Association's (NFPA) codes, standards, and regulations. Facilities faced with a constant threat of fire, such as petrochemical facilities and refineries, semiconductor fabrication plants, paint facilities, co-generation plants, aircraft hangers, silane gas storage facilities, gas turbines and power plants, gas compressor stations, munitions plants, airbag manufacturing plants, and so on are examples of environments that typically require constant monitoring and response to fires and potential fire hazard situations.
To convey the significance of the fire detection system and process proposed by this patent application, an exemplary environment, in which electrostatic coating or spraying operations are performed, is explained in some detail. However, it should be understood that the present invention may be practiced in any environment faced with a threat of fire.
Electrostatic coating or spraying is a popular technique for large scale application of paint, as for example, in a production painting line for automobiles and large appliances. Electrostatic coating or spraying involves the movement of very small droplets of electrically charged "liquid" paint or particles of electrically charged "Powder" paint from an electrically charged (40 to 120,000 volts) nozzle to the surface of a part to be coated.
While facilitating efficiency, environmental benefits, and many production advantages, electrostatic coating of parts in a production paint line, presents an environment fraught with fire hazards and safety concerns. For example, sparks are common from improperly grounded workpieces or faulty spray guns. In instances where the coating material is a paint having a volatile solvent, the danger of a fire from sparking, or arcing, is, in fact, quite serious. Fires are also a possibility if electrical arcs occur between charged objects and a grounded conductor in the vicinity of flammable vapors.
Flame detectors have routinely been located at strategic positions in spray booths, to monitor any fires that may occur and to shut down the electrostatics, paint flow to the gun, and conveyors in order to cut off the contributing factors leading to the fire.
Three primary contributing factors to a fire are: (1) fuel, such as atomized paint spray, solvents, and paint residues; (2) heat such as derived from electrostatic corona discharges, sparking, and arcing from ungrounded workpieces, and so on; and (3) oxygen. If the fuel is heated above its ignition temperature (or "flash point") in the presence of oxygen, then a fire will occur.
An electrical spark can cause the temperature of a fuel to exceed its ignition temperature. For example, in a matter of seconds, a liquid spray gun fire can result from an ungrounded workpiece producing sparks, as the spray gun normally operates at very high voltages (in the 40,000 to 120,000 volt range). An electrical spark can cause the paint (fuel) to exceed its ignition temperature. The resulting spray gun fire can quickly produce radiant thermal energy sufficient to raise the temperature of the nearby paint residue on the booth walls or floor, causing the fire to quickly spread throughout the paint booth.
A fire may self-extinguish if one of the three above mentioned factors is eliminated. Thus, if the fuel supply of the fire is cut off, the fire typically stops. If a fire fails to self-extinguish, flame detectors are expected to activate suppression agents to extinguish the fire and thereby prevent major damage.
Flame detectors, which are an integral part of industrial operations such as the one described above, must meet standards set by the NFPA, which standards are becoming increasingly stringent. Thus, increased sensitivity, faster reaction times, and fewer false alarms are not only desirable, but are now a requirement.
Previous flame detectors have had many drawbacks. The drawbacks of these previous devices have led to false alarms which unnecessarily stop production or activate fire suppression systems when no fire is present. These prior flame detectors have also failed to detect fires upon occasion, resulting in damage to the facilities in which they have been deployed and/or financial repercussions due to work stoppage or damaged inventory and equipment caused by improper release of the fire suppressant.
One drawback of the most common types of flame detectors is that they can only sense radiant energy in one or more of either the ultraviolet, visible, near band infrared (IR), or carbon dioxide (CO.sub.2) 4.3 micron band spectra. Such flame detectors tend to be unreliable and can fail to distinguish false alarms, including those caused by non-fire radiant energy sources (such as industrial ovens), or controlled fire sources that are not dangerous (such as a lighter). Disrupting an automated process in response to a false alarm can, as noted, have tremendous financial setbacks.
Another drawback of previous fire detectors is their lack of reliability, which can be viewed as largely stemming from their approach to fire detection. The most advanced fire detectors available tend to involve simple microprocessor controls and processing software of roughly the same complexity as those used for controlling microwave ovens. The sensitivity levels of these previous devices are usually calibrated only once, during manufacture. However, the sensitivity levels often change as time passes, causing such conventional flame detectors to fail to detect real fires or to false alarm.
Many of the conventional flame detectors also are limited by their utilization of pyroelectric sensors, which detect only the change in radiant heat emitted from a fire. Such pyroelectric sensors depend upon temperature changes caused by radiant energy fluctuations, and are susceptible to premature aging and degraded sensitivity and stability with the passage of time. In addition, such pyroelectric sensors do not take into account natural temperature variations resulting from environmental temperature changes that occur, typically during the day, as a result of seasonal changes or prevailing climatic conditions.
Other types of conventional flame detectors identify fires by relying primarily on the ability to detect a unique narrow band spectral emissions radiated from hot CO.sub.2 (carbon dioxide) fumes produced by the fire. Hot CO.sub.2 gas from a fire emits a narrow band of radiant energy at a wavelength of approximately 4.3 microns. However, cold CO.sub.2 (a common fire suppression agent) absorbs energy at 4.3 microns, and can therefore absorb a hot CO.sub.2 spike emission generated by a fire. In such situations, conventional CO.sub.2 -based flame detectors can miss detecting a fire.
Another type of conventional IR flame detector monitors radiant energy in two infrared frequency bands, typically the 4.3 micron frequency band and the 3.8 micron frequency band, while others use as many as three infrared frequency bands. The dual IR frequency band flame detector commonly utilizes an analog signal subtraction technique for subtracting a reference sensor reading at approximately 3.8 microns from the sensed reading of CO.sub.2 at approximately 4.3 microns. The triple IR frequency band flame detector uses an analogous technique, with an additional reference band at approximately 5 microns. These types of multiband flame detectors can false alarm when cold CO.sub.2 obscures the fire source from the flame detector, thereby misleading the detector into believing that a strong CO.sub.2 emission spike from a fire is detected, when, in fact, a negative absorption spike (caused by e.g., a CO.sub.2 suppression agent discharge or leak) has been detected.
Conventional flame detectors using ultraviolet ("UV") sensors also exist, but these too have drawbacks. Flame detectors with UV sensors may be sensitive to electrostatic spray gun flashes and corona discharges from waterborne coatings, which can cause false alarms and needlessly shut down production in paint spray booths. Also, because arc welding produces copious amounts of intense ultraviolet energy which can be reflected or transmitted over long distances, UV flame detectors can generate false alarms from such UV energy sources, even when the non-fire UV energy is located at a far distance from the spray booth. Moreover, after deployment, conventional UV detectors eventually can become highly de-sensitized as a result of absorbing smoke from a fire and/or solvent mist, causing the UV detector to become blinded. As a result, UV detectors can provide a false sense of security that they are operating at their optimum performance levels, when, in fact, the facility may be vulnerable to a costly fire.
As an additional disadvantage, UV flame detectors generally require a relatively clean viewing window lens for the UV sensor, and can therefore become blinded or degraded by the presence of paint or oil contaminants on the viewing window lens. Moreover, the sensing techniques utilized with conventional UV detectors usually do not take into account the effects of such types of degradation.
Besides problems with flame detection, many or all conventional flame detectors also have limitations or drawbacks relating to their housing and/or mounting that can affect their performance or longevity, in addition to being relatively expensive to manufacture. For example, most optical flame detectors have been built with metal housing made from costly aluminum, stainless steel, or similar materials. Such housings can be heavy, difficult to mount and may not be suitable for certain corrosive environments such as "wet-benches" used in semiconductor fabrication facilities for manufacturing silicon chips and the like.
Further, most or all optical flame detector housings require a window lens (necessary for high optical transmission in the spectral bands used, and typically made of glass, quartz, sapphire, etc.), but it is usually quite difficult to obtain a tight seal of the window lens to metal housings, particularly in chemical manufacturing, or integrated circuit manufacturing or other applications having extremely rigorous environmental requirements. If the flame detector is not tightly sealed, then corrosive chemicals can leak into the electronic circuitry and degrade or destroy the unit.
In flame detectors that detect UV energy, the protective window lens must be constructed from highly expensive quartz, sapphire, or other similar material that does not block UV energy. Moreover, the quartz or sapphire window lenses are typically placed in a metal detector housing, and are collectors of dust and contaminants due to the electrostatic effect of the high voltage field (around 300 to 400 volts) used in the UV detectors. To ensure that the UV detector's sensor(s) can "see through" the window lens, complex and costly "through the lens" tests are necessary. To conduct built-in "through the lens" window lens tests, a UV source tube is generally required to generate a UV test signal. Such UV source tubes require a high voltage for gas discharge sources and/or a large current for incandescent sources. Also, UV source tubes are subject to high failure rates. In sum, these self tests are expensive, require extra power and space, and are prone to breakdowns.
There is a need for a sensitive, reliable, fully enclosed, inexpensive, light-weight, intelligent, and effective method and system for detecting sparks, flames, or fire with little or no interruptions caused by false alarms.